Adjectives: Part of speech, often superfluous. Use Syntax Highlight to find them and kill them. Keep only those that enrich or change the meaning of a sentence (they exist). Similar to Adverbs.
Adverbs: Part of speech, often superfluous. Use Syntax Highlight to find them and kill them. Keep those that enrich or change the meaning of the sentence (they exist). Similar to Adjectives.
Advertisement: The word advertisement is usually discussed in the context of the expression “All of this is advertisement.” Commonly used when a web designer or coder gets confused about their motivation, profession or the medium we work in. Background: the main source of income for large internet companies is advertising. Most public engagements are motivated by some form of positive or negative advertisement. Most online content is advertisement—including this entry.
Algorithm: A fancy word for some lines of code. Algorithms are sold as valuable intellectual property conceived by a mad genius who somehow sublimated into a state of superior computational or Artificial Intelligence-based transcendence. This layer of Bullshit unleashed the phrase “It’s the algorithm!” to avoid responsibility. “It’s the algorithm!” can be used in the same way as “It wasn’t me!” or “It’s not what it looks like.” Algorithms are carefully protected because exposing them could reveal a terrifying triviality, a labyrinth of empty logic, or (if the algorithm appears to work) some form of Mechanical Turk (Example).
Almost Funny: Used to express disgust. “Almost funny” means “This is so stupid, it wouldn't even be funny if it were a joke.” Mistakes that are "almost funny" result from a profound moral and/or strategic failure rather than mistakes labeled as Not just bad.
Apple: Noun. A fruit and the name of a music company jointly owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison. A cool startup in California also uses the name to sell dope computers, sick mobile phones, and awesome tablets, and lit headphones, and stellar mobile payments, and legit digital wallets, and fire credit cards, and ace watches, and killer digital streaming devices, and a boss gaming platform, and a prime fitness service, and a turbo news platform, and several sweet software stores, and fly loudspeakers, and fresh VR goggles, magic mice and other stuff... but no music, because per agreement with the Beatles the other Apple is not engaging in the music business. Ah, wait, in 2007 Apple and Apple settled, and now one Apple licenses music from the other Apple. But none of the Apples sell cars, even though they were looking into it. Apple is popular among young Americans and the top earners around the globe. It is so successful among people who spend money online, that it can dictate business terms with the music, banking, TV and Film, Healthcare, Retail, Education, Automotive, and of course the mobile Software industries. The EU has stepped in to regulate Apple's increasing power. Apple enthusiasts fight on Apple's side for Apple's right to use the all the available power of its fully functional battle station. Like its former rivals Microsoft and Google, Apple has recently given up on its identity and joined the global movement of Making everything the same, reducing its brand identity to a formal differentiator relevant for shareholders. Unlike their competitors, who have agreed to call it Artificial Intelligence they have chosen a pun for their equalizing initiative, and named it Apple intelligence.
Apple Enthusiasts: Regular consumers trapped in a time warp, imagining that a ghostly genius whispers supernatural insights into a corporation’s ear. Also known as “Apple fanboys,” they interpret every Tom Foolery as 4D chess. Since they are free from the annoying legal requirement to not blatantly lie to the public, Apple Enthusiasts produce their fan fiction with far more imagination, passion and detail than the company’s PR department. These loyal followers are stuck between the romanticized image of a plucky underdog from the 90s and the megalomania of a two trillion dollar colossus. They see Apple’s exponents as technically, ethically and intellectually superior champions fighting against the evil empires of Google, Microsoft and the EU. Apple Enthusiasts spend their days and nights zealously parroting and exaggerating corporate talking points, convinced they’re spreading supreme tech wisdom that only they fully understand. Are blissfully unaware of the irony that by supporting one of the world’s behemoths, they make themselves smaller and smaller.
Apple Intelligence: A callout when someone makes Tom Foolery look like 4D chess, like Craig Federighi when he parachuted out of a plane, parkoured through Apple Park, jumped down four meters to fix his lush hair before he sherlocked $400m of dev apps and presented entry level AI as something that requires you to buy new Apple devices, and please wait three to six months. Apple Intelligence can also mean Apple’s half-ironic Artificial Intelligence, not to be confounded with Applied Intelligence or human intelligence. Apple Intelligence is the same as AI anywhere, but with three levels of privacy, depending on how powerful the AI is (the less impressive the AI, the more privacy you get). Level 1 is AI on device, like when you spellcheck a document. Level 2 is privacy-encrypted data traveling between you and Apple’s renewable energy-driven servers. You need that to generate special stuff that needs high privacy, such as AI illustrations in a birthday card for your mother. Because you’re that guy. Level 3: is the most useful level of privacy where Apple asks you every time when you’re about to use ChatGPT whether you really, really want want to give up your privacy and tell ChatGPT about your health condition.
Applied Intelligence: From Lat. applicare (“attach to, join, connect”, literally ad-plicare “fold into”) and intellegere (“dicern, understand” lit. “picking up/reading in between”). Applied Intelligence is the inter-subjective thought that goes into matter when we work, shaping form until it becomes what it is, meaning real. Unlike the user who typically sees a tool from the I-perspective as long as the tool works as expected, designers think from the perspective of those who use them. We try to think as much as we can from other users’ perspectives. Applying intelligence is our job. Obviously, avoiding the shame of being identified as not-so-intelligent when things break or don’t work as expected is part of our motivation to pay extra care when applying our intelligence. Applied Intelligence is the core quality of a functional interface. Not to be mistaken for Artificial Intelligence.
Architecture: From Greek ἀρχιτέκτων (arkhitéktōn, “architect”) from ἀρχι (arkhi-, "primary, chief") + τέκτων (téktōn, “builder”). Architecture can be understood as basic structure or primary Text(ure). Information Architecture is the primary structure of information buildings.
Artificial Intelligence: or AI, is a technology designed to make you do things that previously required you to think. Though mischievously named intelligence it is not intelligent as by definition it lacks conscious understanding. It uses statistical methods to predict patterns and it is as conscious at matching word patterns as dishwashers are conscious at washing dishes. Both the word AI and AI technology spreads virally through LinkedIn, PowerPoint presentations, infecting apps and operating systems, equalizing, unifying, and flattening all software, to make everything look work and do the same. AI making everything the same is the logical consequence of how it works. AI helps cheaters cheat, spammers spam, and deep fakers fake more deeply. On the positive side, AI radically puts our school and business methods into question, since it can replace most current teachers and business consultants and turn everyone into an A student. We don't know how AI will evolve, except that it will certainly make a few very rich people even richer. Tech Optimists who believe that our brains work like computers propose that AI will outsmart us in future. AI is presented as a potential deus ex machina that can both solve all our problems, or end humanity. As we wait for that happy day, we’ll continue to use exponentially increasing amounts of computational energy that further heats our planet. We think that you should turn the tables on AI, but we also know that AI was invented because thinking hurts.
Awkward Room: (deprecated) A room in our old Zurich office that stayed unfurnished for far too long.